India’s unhappy neighbours
Mamoona Ali Kazmi

UNLESS a miracle saves us, the country will break-up. It will not be Pakistan or any other foreign power that will destroy us; we will commit hara-kiri.” Khushwant Singh Recently, BJP’s President Rajnath Singh said that Pakistan is plunging into instability and any new complication in the neighboring country would pose serious problem to India. Today’s world is too mindful to be fooled around. What serious problem India can have with any instability arising in Pakistan when she is already facing a number of insurgencies from within. Primarily, fomenting trouble in neighbouring state, fuelling insurgencies through its agencies and then perceiving them as serious threat to India is much of amusement, indeed. It is out in open that at one hand India is interfering into the internal affairs of neighbouring countries and creating instability and on the other hand blaming them of creating turmoil in India.
No wonder New Delhi is facing some serious security threats but from within. These problems and threats are of absolutely indigenous nature. India is facing Naxal menace, which according to the Indian Prime Minister is the biggest threat to country’s security. Similarly, the turmoil in the Northeastern states is also a result of Indian Governments’ inability to address their grievances. India is also facing communal violence perpetrated by Hindu extremists, having patronage of Indian government. The demolition of Babri Mosque, Gujarat pogrom and burning of Samjhota Express are few examples in which Hindu extremists butchered Muslims with complete impunity. So BJP which is claiming that instability in other countries is bothering India forgets that its militant factions such as VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS are the real threats to Indian sovereignty.
India is viewed as a bully, throwing its weight around and threatening the sovereignty of its smaller neighbours. Her neighbours, through experience, have learnt to live in the shadow of India’s hegemonic designs. Its favoured inclination has been to seek instability through promotion of insurgencies by supporting the destabilizing forces. India is engaged in creating disturbance in Pakistan. India currently has an extensive diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. It includes the Indian embassy in Kabul and four consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat. These Indian diplomatic missions serve as launching pads for undertaking covert operations against Pakistan from Afghan soil. Particularly, the Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad and their embassy in Kabul are used for clandestine activities inside Pakistan in general and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Baluchistan in particular. Indian consulates in Afghanistan are printing fake Pakistani currency, using it to recruit poverty-stricken Afghans to carry out acts of sabotage and terrorism on Pakistani territory. A senior official in Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said that, “Pakistan very much wants a stable Afghanistan, because they are next to us, and any instability up there will leak into Pakistan but as for the Indians, we told Afghanistan that the only purpose of opening those consulates is cross border terrorism into Pakistan”. India is using Afghanistan as the launching base for ‘proxy war’ and is constantly encouraging and promoting activities detrimental to Pakistan.
India’s attitude and behaviour with her neighbouring countries has persistently tended to violate the norms of peaceful co-existence. Instead of recognizing their equal status and sovereignty India wishes submissive behaviour on the part of its neighbours. In addition to Pakistan other countries of South Asia are also facing interference from Indian side. India is unduly interfering in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group, is engaged in a bloody insurgency that has brought the Sri Lankan Government to its knees. For its war effort it needs resources for which India is more than willing to oblige. Another instance of Indian interference is that Sri Lanka was forced to turn down missile defense systems from China due to the pressure exerted by India
India is continuously interfering into the internal affairs of Bangladesh. She is supporting the Chakma refugees of Bangladesh in order to create unrest in that country. Her expansionist design intends to merge the whole Bangladesh into Indian Territory. For this purpose India is supporting many separatist groups and fifth columnists for covert and overt operations. Tracts of Bangladeshi territories are in forced possession of India. She presently occupies 110 enclaves of Bangladesh. Human Rights Congress of Bangladeshi Minorities (HRCBM), a Hindu organization is creating communal violence in Bangladesh. It is facilitating the settlement of Hindus in border districts of the country in order to facilitate Indian annexation of border territory of Bangladesh. The area identified is about 30% border territory of Bangladesh and has been named a Bango Bhumi to be annexed with India. Economic growth of Bangladesh has been hampered due to excessive penetration of Indian smuggled goods into the markets of Bangladesh. Indian intelligence agencies have also flooded Bangladesh with fake paper money to ruin its economy. India is also compelling Bangladesh to provide transit route to her in exchange for exporting rice and other edible goods, badly needed in the country.
India is also abetting internal chaos in Nepal. India is creating problems in Terai area through armed groups who are now openly talking of a separate Madhesi State. Recently, a regional party named Terai Madhesh Loktantsrik Party (TMLP) has been launched in Terai area. Reportedly, the party is fully backed by India. India is critical of the working of United Nations Mission (UNMN) in Nepal, which is working in Nepal since January 2007 to monitor the cease fire between Army and Maoists. UNMN has been able to find out Indian involvement into the internal affairs of Nepal. India, which is in habit of blaming others for all its wrongs most of the time forgets that it has many elements on its soil which are creating terrorism. In most of the subversive activities on Indian soil the Hindu extremist groups are involved. They executed such activities sometimes to have an excuse to start backlash against Muslims and sometimes to inflict harm to Muslims and damage to their properties and belongings. Despite knowing the involvement of Hindu fanatics in most terrorist acts the Indian government is in habit of blaming Lashkar-i-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Indian Muslims and Pakistan for every subversive activity. This is just like deliberately closing ones eyes and ignoring the facts. There are several incidents in which the Indian government readily put the blame on Indian Muslims and Pakistan such as Sabarmati Express incident, Malegaon Blasts and Samjhota Express explosion. It was, however, cleared afterwards that Hindu extremist groups have had a hand in all these events as the style of execution was much similar.
In its well known way, India is double crossing its neighbours and leaving no stone unturned to expand beyond its territory. In order to understand the Indian political objectives one has to recall childhood story of the wolf and the lamb. Just like wolf, India on the basis of lame-excuses and absurd reasons trying to eat up the small neighbouring states. After all this is the only way a Greater India can emerge on the map of the world.




Cementing military bonds
Yan Wei

THE recently concluded fifth round of the China-U.S. Strategic Dialogue with its special focus on defense was an instrumental first step for the two countries to advance their military relations through formal discussions, Chinese international affairs experts said. For the first time since the mechanism, which Washington prefers to call Senior Dialogue, was launched in 2005, military officials were involved in the discussions. Officials from China and United States, headed by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, held talks in Guiyang, the capital of southwest China’s Guizhou Province, on January 17-18. During the two-day dialogue, they “exchanged in-depth views in a candid manner” on topics such as the international situation, China-U.S. relations and the two countries’ cooperation in international and regional issues, according to a news release issued by China’s Foreign Ministry.
Among the participants were Ding Jingong, deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Office at China’s Ministry of National Defense, and James Shinn, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs. The inclusion of discussions in the military field marked fresh progress in the China-U.S. Strategic Dialogue, said Luo Yuan, Deputy Director of the World Military Research Department of the Academy of Military Sciences of the People’s Liberation Army. “Political talks inevitably involve defense and security topics, such as national sovereignty and territory and the prevention of crises, which are all related to the military,” he said. “Military officials’ participation in the dialogue is highly significant.” While hailing the growing military exchanges between China and United States, experts underlined the need for the countries to address each other’s concerns equally. Strategic mutual trust is of paramount importance to both countries, they said.
During the talks, China and the United States agreed to continue to implement the consensus reached by the two countries’ heads of state, maintain high-level exchanges and deepen dialogue and cooperation. They also agreed to strengthen their coordination in international affairs and to properly handle sensitive issues to achieve the stable development of China-U.S. relations. Luo pointed out that China and the United States have established a number of defense dialogue mechanisms, such as the vice-ministerial level defense consultation and the maritime safety consultation, between their ministries of defense. Some of mutual visits also have become institutionalized, he said. “Dialogue mechanisms established through various channels and on different levels demonstrate China’s eagerness to integrate into the international system and the Chinese military’s confidence and sincerity in safeguarding peace and strengthening mutual trust,” Luo said.
The increasing military exchanges between China and the United States are based on their mutual needs, said Jin Canrong, Deputy Dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China. As major military powers, both countries badly need to explore ways to reduce potential frictions, he said. Dialogue mechanisms and high-level visits are useful in this regard, he said, adding that cooperation between the two countries’ military forces in carrying out joint exercises is still in a primary stage. The Chinese and U.S. navies held their first joint maritime search and rescue exercise in 2006. In late 2007, the two countries agreed to set up a hotline between their ministries of defense. Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command Timothy Keating concluded his second visit to China in eight months on January 16. Exchanges like these have helped increase the two countries’ military transparency and enhance their mutual trust, Luo said. While China has made incremental progress in promoting military transparency, such transparency should be mutual and equal, he said. Given its own security concerns, China has reason to ask the United States to be more transparent, he added. Months after the fourth round of the China-U.S. Strategic Dialogue in Washington last June, the United States said it would sell sophisticated weapons, including 12 antisubmarine aircraft and 144 cruise missiles, to Taiwan. The move naturally raised China’s doubts about the strategic purpose of the United States, Luo said. At the Guiyang meeting, Dai reaffirmed China’s position on the Taiwan question.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)





Why Kosovo deserves independence
Ian Williams

WHEN John Bolton, Henry Kissinger, Vojislav Kostunica and Vladimir Putin line up with the fossilized relics of the Leninist left on an issue — you can be fairly sure that they are all wrong. There may be practical arguments against Kosovo’s independence, but for this motley assortment of naysayers to cite international law really has to take the biscuit. Along with what passes for leadership in Belgrade they all disregard the Genocide Convention and share an ostrich-like denial that the Serbian state under Milosevic practiced genocide and Ethnic-cleansing — or that it matters very much.
But all their pomp about sovereignty and the sacredness of boundaries does not change circumstances: Serbia as a state was complicit in what the World Court called “an act of genocide” in Srebrenica and in ethnic cleansing and mass murder in Kosovo. Belgrade, which carried on paying a pension to general Ratko Mladic while claiming it could not find him to hand over to the Hague, has now discovered an expedient attachment to international law over Kosovo. This week at the international tribunal in The Hague, the judges are considering the refrigerated trucks full of excavated corpses of Kosovars that were driven into Serbia to be buried under police barracks or dumped in the Danube. No one is disputing that it happened. It is just that the Serbian police drivers on the witness stand seem confused about which of their superior officers ordered them to do it.
Even if the leaders in Belgrade had shown any serious measure of contrition for a decade of apartheid culminating in 1998 with the massacre of thousands of Kosovars and driving the bulk of the population over the borders such acts forfeit any duty from the victims to the perpetrating state. Instead of saying sorry, they bluster about precedents in international law. But there is a very cogent and recent example. Pakistan was originally formed by the voluntary union of what is now Bangladesh and what is now left of the country in the west. You may note that, in contrast, the Kosovars were not asked about their incorporation into Serbia in 1912, or at any time since.
When in 1971 the Pakistani Army staged mass killings and rapes of the Bengalis in East Pakistan, and foolishly took on India, it lost, and Bangladesh seceded. Bangladesh became a member of the Commonwealth, recognized by almost 90 countries, and in fact a member of many of the subsidiary bodies. Its first application to join the UN became the occasion off Beijing’s first veto, since the PRC and Pakistan were close allies against India and the Soviet Union. Those who deny the Kosovars the right to secede, then, somewhat contradictorily advance the right of the Serbs in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Northern Mitrovica to secede and overlook the circumstances. In fact, the RSK owes its present Serb majority to acts of genocide and ethnic-cleansing, and even Northern Mitrovica’s present population is based on the refusal of the Serbs there, with the connivance of UN forces on the bridge, to allow Albanians back into their homes.
In contrast, Kosovo owes its present status to an international reaction against ethnic-cleansing that Belgrade committed, and in the end the illogic of victims needing the permission of their murderers to quit will become obvious. Bangladesh became a member of the UN in 1974. Kosovo looks set to follow in the same path, with recognition from most countries in the world being followed eventually by admission to the United Nations. Like Pakistan, Belgrade’s nationalists can prance on their diminutive stage for a while, but reality will eventually intrude. Then everyone can join the EU, and the borders will be irrelevant.

—Arab News